That is what I thought, though when I read your sections titled "Actual collaborative editing is a lot harder" and "CRDT is a tradeoff" it seemed to suggest otherwise particularly with this comment:
"The flip side of the tradeoff is that you have to express your application logic in CRDT-compatible form"
Previously I assumed this was speaking of xi, but it sounds like this was meant generically (not specific to xi)?
I am curious now, it seems like the decision isn't a matter of CRDTs not working out (technically), and more a matter of the amount of effort not being worth it compared to other more synchronous approaches?
Absolutely the right call to make. Though, the last thing we want is people giving up on CRDT research which is how the hackernews title reads "CRDTs not working". So I was just trying to clarify things for future audience.
For sure. If you're doing collaborative editing, then CRDT is a reasonable choice, but it comes with tradeoffs compared with other approaches such as OT, as I hope I've explained. (The comparison with differential synchronization is not as well understood as it should be - I suspect it works pretty well in practice but doesn't lend itself to academic analysis.)
On the other hand, the idea of using CRDT for something other than collaborative editing (or certain types of databases where eventual consistency is a reasonable consistency model) is almost certainly not worth the complexity. That's what I wish I had known when I started.
Hey, I'm in Bay Area also, we should meet up. I've seen you've commented here on HN on Rik's makepad WebGL stuff and Joseph Gentle's OT (chatting with him on Monday!), which are both people & projects I'm fascinated by too.
"The flip side of the tradeoff is that you have to express your application logic in CRDT-compatible form"
Previously I assumed this was speaking of xi, but it sounds like this was meant generically (not specific to xi)?
I am curious now, it seems like the decision isn't a matter of CRDTs not working out (technically), and more a matter of the amount of effort not being worth it compared to other more synchronous approaches?
Absolutely the right call to make. Though, the last thing we want is people giving up on CRDT research which is how the hackernews title reads "CRDTs not working". So I was just trying to clarify things for future audience.